Tonight was Star Trek Fan Flick night. We had a good turn out Gary, Rick, Kathy, Jim, Rich and Bob. It was Bob's first time at the house. Pete would have made it, but his mom had a heart attack followed by a stroke last weekend. Mary served chili an easy dish to prepare so she could actually watch the movies this time around. The chili was great since the weather turned cold again, but at least the sun was out.
Last Halloween, some of DVDs would hang in the middle. I used the home DVD recorder this time, and it seems to work. Nero 7 doesn't work properly. I don't know if it's because it had to convert PAL to NTSC.
Tonight we showed:
The New Voyages pilot - Come What May. This New York based group are listed as being out in Ticonderoga, but I heard of several different cities. This is the first Star Trek fan flick that I was exposed to. You have to remember that this is a pilot, and later episodes do improve. Rand is a redhead. Chekov has a little too much hair, and Captain Kirk sports an Elvis hairstyle. Chekov becomes a red shirt while Rand goes from a red shirt to a gold shirt. Spock even has a grin or drops a joke from time to time.
Starship Exeter's pilot - The Savage Empire. Filmed in Minnesota, this is based on a sister ship of the Enterprise. The ship appeared in one episode of Star Trek. The sets look like they are right out of the original series. The purple claymation dinosaur special effects needs work. Someone commented that it was Barney. Oh well, maybe a fan can make a better scene.
Stone Trek is where Star Trek meets the Flintstones. Very good quality. I had to work out a procedure to record Flash as a full screen movie to DVD. Tonight we saw the first episode The Deadly Ears.
Star Wreck VI: In The Pirkinning - A full 2 hour movie which spoofs what happens when Star Trek encounters Babylon 5. Very funny. Fantastic special FXs. The only thing real on the set were the people and the chairs. I downloaded the other five episodes which were not of the same quality as this one.
I did discover that Windows Media Player is better than Realplayer when playing multiple movies. It stays in full screen through the transition. Unfortunately, Realplayer is the only software that plays .mov files in fullscreen. The free Quicktime doesn't. Realplayer has a problem playing some files in a playlist. I haven't figured this out yet. I even updated the software. Maybe if I convert from mov to avi, but not all files convert.
For some reason the image skewed to the right when played back from the DVD. Perhaps a resolution problem? My computer screen is at 800x600 while the tv screen is 720x480.
Last Halloween, some of DVDs would hang in the middle. I used the home DVD recorder this time, and it seems to work. Nero 7 doesn't work properly. I don't know if it's because it had to convert PAL to NTSC.
Tonight we showed:
I did discover that Windows Media Player is better than Realplayer when playing multiple movies. It stays in full screen through the transition. Unfortunately, Realplayer is the only software that plays .mov files in fullscreen. The free Quicktime doesn't. Realplayer has a problem playing some files in a playlist. I haven't figured this out yet. I even updated the software. Maybe if I convert from mov to avi, but not all files convert.
For some reason the image skewed to the right when played back from the DVD. Perhaps a resolution problem? My computer screen is at 800x600 while the tv screen is 720x480.
